The most controversial moments of Sean Spicer's wild ride as Trump's press secretary

Sean Spicer officially departed the White House on Thursday, one month after announcing his resignation as President Donald Trump's press secretary.

As the buffer between the press and Trump, Spicer had a challenging job — one that he made even more difficult with repeated blunders and controversies.

Here are some of the biggest controversies to take place since Spicer took over the role of the official White House press secretary on January 20.

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Sean Spicer's most controversial moments

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Sean Spicer's most controversial moments

Spicer's role started off to a rocky start when, two days after Trump's inauguration, when he declared Trump had "the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period."

Despite photos of the event showing a crowd much sparser than former President Barack Obama's 2009 inauguration, Spicer insisted that no other president attracted a bigger crowd of visitors and fought with reporters who challenged his assertion.

In this photo: Sean Spicer waves as he walks into the White House in Washington, on July 21, 2017.

REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Spicer repeatedly went back and forth on whether Trump's decision to block people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the US was indeed "a ban."

Even though Trump himself tweeted about the travel ban, Spicer insisted that it "can't be a ban" and should instead be called "extreme vetting."

In this photo: Sean Spicer reacts to a reporter's question during his daily briefing at the White House on June 20, 2017.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

During his time as press secretary, Spicer became known for repeatedly sparring with reporters — such as when he told one journalist to "calm down" and another one to stop shaking her head.

"Calm down," Spicer once told a journalist who was asking him questions about Trump's claims of wiretapping during the 2016 elections.

In this photo: Sean Spicer briefs reporters outside the West Wing of the White House on March 6, 2017.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

There was also the time when Spicer said that Americans could definitely trust Trump — "if he's not joking."

"If he's not joking, of course," Spicer once told a reporter who asked if Americans could trust the things that Trump said. He followed that by saying that Trump was still correct when he said that 3 million Americans voted illegally in the 2016 election.

In this photo: Sean Spicer speaks to reporters outside the West Wing on May 09, 2017.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Even though Paul Manafort served as Trump's campaign chairman for three months, Spicer once told reporters that he played a "very limited role" in the campaign.

During a press briefing, Spicer said that Manafort — who spent three months as Trump's campaign chairman — did not play a large role in Trump's administration. That came in response to questions about the investigation into alleged links between Russian officials and the Trump administration.

In this photo: Paul Manafort listens during a round table discussion on security at Trump Tower in Manhattan on August 17, 2016.

REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Hitler did not resort to "using the gas on his own people," Spicer once falsely said to a room full of reporters.

One of Spicer's biggest controversies came when he falsely stated that, unlike Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Hitler had never used chemical weapons and did not resort to using gas "on his own people." Spicer later apologized for both of these comments, after numerous Jewish groups and students of history called for his resignation.

In this photo: Sean Spicer holds the daily press briefing at the White House on March 27, 2017.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

"If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that's a Russian connection," Spicer once said to questions about Trump.

In late March, Spicer tried to downplay questions about whether Trump had collaborated with Russian officials by saying that the media used anything as nebulous as Russian salad dressing to demonstrate a connection.

In this photo: Sean Spicer arrives in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York on January 5, 2017.

REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Another notorious moment occurred when Spicer ducked into some bushes to avoid reporters' questions on Trump's abrupt firing of FBI Director James Comey.

Back in May, Spicer struggled to avoid the media firestorm that arose after Trump unexpectedly fired Comey — by momentarily ducking behind some bushes by the White Hose. The move only exacerbated the public's frustration and prompted quite a few "Spicer in the bushes" memes.

In this photo: Sean Spicer deliver a statement at the White House on January 21, 2017.